Every Oxymoron
by Iris Cornelia Jade
Summary: Bright yet dull, white yet black, warm yet cold. What is light? The obvious: light simply is.


_Light is white, yet light is black._

The grass rustles beneath your feet, the wind ruffles your hair, sunlight clouds every petal on every flower, every corner of the field, every bend in the river, and you're unmistakably _alive._

**Yet everything around you is dead.**

The thin, uneven line of the grassy horizon sears with bright-white fire as the sun wavers in fog and shadow, brimming uneasily over the edge of the island. You watch expectantly as a single bird trills uneasily, the clear note piercing the air sharply. Every stirring animal and wavering plant is caught under your penetrating, hawk-eyed gaze as the very earth beneath your feet seems to stir, thrive, and above all, _live. _It is every small miracle that must be treasured now in this time. The sun is rising now, and the new day brings forth possibility and promise.

But you are brought back to reality as your wife pads up quietly behind you and sets a hand on your shoulder. This is not the golden day, back when you still lived on the mainland and had not a care in the world. This is a sunrise amongst many in the midst of darkness and death, and every day brings more death. More disease. More pain.

Every new light brings more darkness.

Every new day brings death.

But possibility is prominent, riddled in the red-smeared sky. Every streak of orange holds promise—promises of death, yes, but also a guarantee that every sunrise, from today until the day you die, you are _allowed_ to strive toward any goal. You are allowed to search for anything—anywhere—anytime—using any means, until you are free.

Every light is gray for you, you who make the serum.

* * *

><p><em>Light is warm, yet light is cold.<em>

You can hear the voices chasing behind you, pushing you away from the flickering yellow-orange. It looks so much like the paper recreations you see in the tinsel school plays, and you almost have to suppress a laugh—what is _wrong_ with you? But you do, gasping in biting cold air as you let out a hoarse cackle that sounds more like a sob. You stumble from grass into sand and your foot catches on rock as you collapse onto the cool beach, letting silt slip-slide through your fingers in the same way your wreck life is sliding out of your grasp now.

Your brother's knees fold as he squats next to you; shoulders slumped and face sagging like you know yours are too. Beside you, you are aware of your uncle murmuring words that filter through your head—but you do not _hear_ him. You know what he's saying and you know he's trying, but you can feel the sand chaffing against your face and rubbing your skin raw, you can feel the wind tangling your hair, you can smell the salt of the ocean tanging through every nerve, and you knows you're walking the walk you and so many other Cahills have walked before.

It's not just _your _past, huddling beside your brother while you watched your home and parents being consumed by the flames. It's also the past of Cahill through Cahill, numerous like the white-capped waves lapping on the shore. You feel Grace and Katherine and Jane's blood, however faint, running through your veins like quicksilver all the way up to Olivia Cahill, and you feel like Olivia herself as you turn toward the house and realize that the distance isn't that far, that the fire is still burning, and the flickering fire still exudes warmth that curls around you like a blanket, intoxicating and evil. You swear you can smell Irina's blood on the wind, and it smells like Isabel's perfume. The mocking tone of her laughter seems to ring around you, and it's so _cold_, it chills every bone in your body and numbs the fire until you feel like you could walk through it and come out unscathed.

**Or at least, not any more broken than you are already.**

Every tendril of heat the light exudes is lukewarm to you, you who have lived through two already when others did not.

* * *

><p><em>Light is bright, yet light is dull.<em>

As the bright mid-noon sunlight hits your eyes with intensity unmatched, you blink just once before regaining your control. It's not characteristic to you to do it, and heavens knows, your brat of a sister will just accuse you of liking that _peasant_ (which no, you do _not._ It's just a ruse, and those are _supposed_ to be convincing). But, compared to that dark, mud-encrusted cave which no one's walked in centuries and centuries, it seems like even light hasn't been able to penetrate it, and any introduced is consumed by overpowering, midnight-evil darkness. It's clouded with age, it's filled with dust and memories, and, quite frankly, it scares even you. And, in comparison, the sunlight seems to caress the palm of every leaf, glisten off the face of every crag in the rock. The brightness engulfs you, drowning you in brightness, and you can _see, see, see_. It amazes even you, although the amber hue seems all the more glaring bright under the watchful gaze of the sentry of the sun.

It's hard to walk away from the cave without looking back, casting one look—but you manage, your sister moaning about the dirt caking her boots and burrowing under her fingernails. After your dark-worn eyes are newly exposed, the light seems all the more bright. Forget looking at the sun head on—you can't even bear to look anywhere near the horizon line, but it's well worth the burning behind your eyes as the world shapes itself into a new sphere, woven of amber and gold. This is new, and to feel this way is a weakness—but you've never shown weakness before, and maybe now isn't the best time to start. But, with a life like yours, any time is a good time. A time you deserve.

But with this comes new understanding, new weight of what you've done. You've left them to die—and maybe they'll get out, but probably they won't, **and the light darkens and grows heavy as your conscience does likewise too.**

Every light has lost its shine, you who plot and kill.

* * *

><p><em>Light is.<em>

Is it the moment in the great inventor's brain? The hope of even the most hopeless? The sun as it continues its never-ending, timeless cycle around and around the horizon? The revealing of secret and plot untold? Untellable? Or is it even real at all?

It is real.

It's everywhere.

Every act of kindness. When a child smiles, when a baby laughs, when a spark start and burns and burns until its turns into a roaring inferno that burns nations and the minds of men, wielded by Liberty as it burns on her torch.

Every mind, every matter. All.

Light is there.

Even in every dark moment, light is ever-present.

That is why we have hope.

**I find hope in the darkest of days, and focus in the brightest.**


End file.
